


And they were roommates

by Lytchu



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fluff, Hospital, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pillow Fights, Shinichi: sometimes violence IS the answer, attempted humor, but not the way you'd think, kinda discreet but its there, little bit of action, little bit of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lytchu/pseuds/Lytchu
Summary: It's been two years, and he finally meets him again. But meeting in an underground room, with himself being severely injured, where there was a sorta gang doing illegal things probably wasn't the most ideal situation.It works out though so.
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Comments: 9
Kudos: 115
Collections: dcmkkaishinevents kaishin secret santa 2020





	And they were roommates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunoiere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunoiere/gifts).



> Canon? I have literally, never once in my life, ever met her. I don't know who she is.
> 
> —
> 
> Hello Lunoiere! I'm your Secret Santa and lemme just say, I really loved your prompts!! I decided on the first prompt, with Shinichi protecting a hurt!Kaito, but I don't think I followed that properly (-_-;). I'm really sorry, but I did write badass!Shinichi!! Hopefully that is okay? :DD 
> 
> I will admit that this fic got a little out of hand though. But it was my honor getting you as a Secret Santa! I hope you enjoy :DD
> 
> I don’t know how a hospital works.

It’s cold.

The hands that are fisted into his collar are cold, threatening to choke him. He blearily looks down at the gray and hard concrete, his vision swimming as he grits his teeth. His breaths come in sharp and they go out heavy, lungs ready to collapse.

“Where is Aeterna?” A harsh voice demands, the hold on his collar tightening as they push him further into the wall. “Tell me!”

Shinichi shakily lifts head, raising his beaten and bruised hands to grasp at the man’s wrists. The man’s face doesn’t change, nor does he flinch when Shinichi’s grip pathetically tightens. His right arm throbs, stinging faintly from a light slash wound across his bicep.

“Aeterna?” Shinichi repeats, rough and grating. He glares at the deranged madness he sees swimming in the man’s eyes, demanding to know of something that sounds foreign to Shinichi’s ears. English? Latin? Well, now that he gets a better look at the man, with his oddly colored eyes and smooth, plastic like skin, he seems foreign too. Otherworldly. Inhuman.

Blood drips from another knife cut down the left side of Shinichi’s forehead, right above his eye. A cut he received just a minute ago, right when his attacker had seized and pushed him against the concrete wall. The knife had clattered onto the ground then, right between their feet. He’s forced to close his left eye, feeling the liquid slide past his eyelid and down his cheek.

Various patches of pain throb across his body, and he knows he’ll be watching various shades of bruises bloom across his skin by tomorrow afternoon.

“Let him go,” a quiet voice rasps from across the room. Hostages. Victims. Plucked off the street. One child, two teenagers, three adults, one elderly.

“Kaito,” a feminine voice murmurs, tears thick in her throat.

Shinichi watches as the man’s eyes shift to the right, and Shinichi struggles in his grasp, drawing his attention back before it can divert to the small group of beaten down bodies across the room. A concrete room. Underground. Where the only source of light are the four flickering light bulbs dug into the ceiling. Where no one will hear their screams.

He can feel it when the brunt of the man’s scalding attention turns back to him, his hands tightening on his collar as he jerks Shinichi forward and throws him back against the wall. Shinichi coughs out in pain, his vision swimming when his head bangs against the concrete. There must’ve been something smeared on that knife. Something slow-acting.

“You’re a detective! Tell me! Where is Aeterna,” the man spits. “Where have they taken it?”

He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, so he doesn’t pay that detail any mind, filing it away to the back of his mind to analyze later. For now he needs to think. He hadn’t anticipated getting as badly beaten up as he had, with the only things left on his person being a pair of handcuffs stored in his back pocket, and his stun-watch. His phone had been flung into a corner, hitting against the wall with a loud crack before clattering to the ground.

At least his keys were in a safe place, nestled underneath one of the hostages (the child, the ten year old boy, if he remembered correctly enough through the thickening haze), along with a small switchblade that was attached to the keyring. Hopefully they could cut themselves out of the rope binding them. He couldn’t use his watch yet, not with the man still mobile and keeping a heavy watch on him.

“I said,” the raspy voice starts up again, just as strained, “let him go!”

The man’s eyes blaze in anger, and he swivels his head around, most likely to bark some obscenities at them. There’s a brief second where the man loosens his grip, his attention diverted elsewhere, and Shinichi takes it as his opening.

“Don’t-!” A female voice threatens, but she gets cut off when Shinichi twists the man’s hands off his collar, pushing him back until he can yank the man down and ram his knee straight into his stomach. The man wheezes, doubling over as Shinichi scrambles out from under him.

The man was slightly shorter than him, but he was definitely bulkier, in comparison to Shinichi’s lean body. Eight seconds, maybe less, until the man recovers and charges after him, so Shinchi takes care to dash a good distance away before turning around, quickly ducking and narrowly missing a head-on collision with the man’s fist.

The momentum of the punch makes the man stumble forward a few paces, before he rights himself and turns around with a loud growl, glaring Shinichi down as he leaps forward again, first raised for another punch. Shinichi takes a rapid step back, scrabbling for balance as the man swings and misses, and pulls out the handcuffs from his back pocket.

He grits his teeth and side steps as the man swings his fist out again in another fit of rage, feeling his entire world spin and blur as he clamps one of the handcuffs around the man’s wrist. He pulls, and the man uses his stumble to swing his other fist, aiming for Shinichi’s head. Shinichi ducks, his eyesight momentarily doubling, and clamps the other handcuff onto the man’s other wrist, effectively immobilizing his hands.

He grabs a hold on the chain connecting the two handcuffs together before the man could twist out of his grasp, and pulls it down with all his weight, dropping and sweeping his foot out, knocking off what little balance the man hand left. Shinichi can feel his own limbs slowly losing strength. The man doesn’t even get to finish his cry as he falls, his yell cutting off abruptly when his front smashes into the ground with a hard thud.

Not enough to knock him out or cause permanent damage, but long enough for Shinichi to stagger upwards and pop open his watch, firing off his tranquilizer dart now that his target was no longer actively moving. The needle sinks into the back of his neck, and the man immediately stops struggling, muscles relaxing until he’s lying limp on the floor.

Thirty minutes. Roughly. Wherever the man’s accomplices went, and however long it would take for them to come back, he just had to hope that his own backup would get here faster. He had to get to his phone.

His brain feels like it’s starting to liquify.

Shinichi’s breath is still heaving from exertion, and he raises an arm to wipe away at the blood staining his left eye. He blinks it open, and then blinks again. His vision was nearly entirely blurred now, with only a small tunnel of clarity left. A poison? No, something close to an anaesthetic, but more potent.

Shinichi glares down at the man, his eyes straining to focus on the limp body below him. He grits his teeth and tenses his legs, forcing them to turn towards the far corner of the room, opposite of the group of hostages. Each step he takes feels heavier than the last, and it’s with strenuous effort that he finally makes it to the corner, where his phone had been hurled and cracked against.

Shinichi doesn’t think he can bend down without falling over, so he leans heavily on the wall before sliding down to his knees, slow and controlled to the best of his ability. He picks up his phone, examining the kaleidoscope of fractures that run across the screen, and turns it on. The man had been able to call one of his associates before Shinichi had barreled into the room, so even if this place was bordered with a meter thick wall of concrete, there was still cell service.

He smiles wryly. How convenient. He carefully thumbs at the screen to avoid cutting his fingers on the glass, and sends a quick message to Sato. He stares at the screen for several seconds, making sure that it had sent without any problems, before letting the device slip out of his hands.

Sato should be off her lunch break by now, and seeing as she was the designated officer he had been assigned to shadow, she would be wondering where he had left to. So any message that she receives would be quickly read. This area isn't that far from headquarters either, so he would give them twenty minutes tops before they arrived, with an ambulance or two in tow. Just enough time.

But for now, he should check on the hostages. He heaves himself back up, leaning heavily against the wall when he finally makes it back onto his feet. He can barely even see.

“Are you alright?” He hears a shaky voice from across the room, most likely one of the teenagers. The least injured one, the female. The other teen he had seen, the male, had been curled up on the floor when he’d arrived, his face speckled with patches of dark red, skin painted black and blue.

Shinichi’s fine. His breaths may be coming in a little heavy, and his heart rate might be slowing down to a point where he can’t even feel it anymore, but he’s fine. Hostages first. He needs to release them. He pushes himself away from the corner, focusing his vision until he eyes the blurry pile of figures across the room. He can barely make them out anymore.

He takes a step forward, and lets out a breath. Muffled voices meet his ears. A faint ringing starts. Another step, and he takes in a breath, one that he can’t even feel. More muffled voices meet his ears, blocked by cotton. The ringing gets louder. Another step, and he can’t feel himself breathing anymore. A figure shifts. Another step, and he guesses he’s near the middle of the room. The figure shifts again, this time more frantic, but he can only tell because the outline keeps moving.

Another step, and he’s falling to his knees. He can’t even feel the impact, just the figures spiraling out of view as his body tips over. His cheek collides with the ground, and he has half a mind to scream, just to let himself know that he even _had_ fallen. But no sound comes out, no...sound. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him.

The concrete is cool against his cheek, and it feels so relaxing. Everything is numb, and he’s about to drift off when he hears a cry of something that vaguely resembles his name, cutting through the cotton stuffing his ears. This time closer, a little bit clearer, a little bit reminiscent. He hasn’t heard that voice in a while. His eyes slide open, and he tilts his head back, towards the group of hostages.

His vision is still blurred considerably, now only able to discern blobs of color, but none of that even registers when his eyes catch onto a vibrant shade of blue. Or was that violet? Something in between, he thinks. Something he hasn’t seen for so long. Something he’s missed. A remnant of his past.

_Where have you been?_

He asks, but he doesn’t think he produces any sound. He can’t feel his lips moving, or feel his vocal cords vibrating, or hear his voice echoed within his head. So he tunnels his vision onto those eyes, blown wide and shaking.

Shinichi flicks his eyes up when he sees a small figure moving towards him, and it’s not until he directs all of his attention towards it does he realize that it’s a hand. He lazily directs his vision back to those vibrant eyes, separated from him by nearly a meter, filled with desperation and determination. Were they trying to reach him?

Shinichi’s eyes flutter close, and the rest of the world falls away.

* * *

When he opens his eyes, it’s to a white tiled ceiling, splattered with faint gray spots across the entire expanse of it. He takes a deep breath in, and inhales the bitter smell of antiseptic, mixed with a sharp metallic tang. There’s busy footsteps echoing around the room, and he can hear faint chatter to his right. When he closes his eyes, it’s to a short clang of a clipboard hitting against the railing of a bed across the room.

He hates it.

He exhales, slowly, and feels every muscle in his body loosen and ache. But beyond that dull feeling, he can’t feel much else. He opens his eyes again, and is met with a brilliant splash of blue. Sapphire. Violet. What is it?

_‘You’re awake?’_

He can’t tell. And he can’t find it within himself to tell either. The world is disorienting itself again. The ache from before, once dull and unpleasant, has started draining out of his limbs.

_‘BaKaito! Stop bothering him!’_

Voices meet his ears, but they’re all muffled, like he’s underwater. There’s another loud yell that follows, and his eyes slide shut, barring his comprehension for another time.

—

He dreams.

There’s an explosion. Hurried footsteps. A frantic heartbeat, encapsulated by a small body. One that isn’t nearly fast or strong enough. There’s rough hands, trembling as he looks down at them. They’re his own. Always his own. He clenches them. Empty.

Fire rages ahead. Fire rages everywhere.

He dreams.

—

He opens his eyes again. It’s quiet, but the same ceiling from before stares back down at him. The gray dots fade in and out of focus, and it’s not until he squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, that they finally stay in focus. He lets out a slow breath, and attempts to move his body. But every limb feels heavy, so he settles for staring up at the ceiling, not quite thinking, stuck in a daze.

It’s night, he thinks, after a few minutes of difficulty. The room is dim, the artificial lights turned off in order to help patients sleep easier, but there’s a faint light streaking across the room from his right. So he tilts his head to the right, following it.

The first thing his eyes land on is the giant window, nearly taking up the entire wall. The left side of the curtains have been pulled to the center, and the right side, the side that’s facing him, is left bare, the curtains still tied off to the side. The dark sky stares back at him, and if he leans his head back the smallest bit, he thinks he can see the tip of a waxing phase moon peeking out from behind the left side of the curtain.

He lets out another slow breath, and lets his head dip to his right even further. His eyes catch onto a sleeping figure, unmoving in a hospital bed a meter away. They’re facing him, and if Shinichi narrows his eyes, he can make out a bandage plastered on the cheek they’re sleeping on. There’s still bruises littering their face, but they’ve lightened into shades of green, in comparison to the dark blue and purples he had first seen them with.

He frowns. How long has he been out?

He should ask. He should stay awake to ask. Maybe he could ask this person, who he hasn’t met in nearly two years. His stomach lurches at the thought, and he attempts to turn his body to face them, to mirror their position.

But all he can feel is how heavy his eyelids are, how weighed down his body is.

He takes in a breath, and succumbs to another bout of darkness.

—

He dreams again.

Fire is still raging, threatening to swallow him in their destruction. He has to leave. He needs to leave, but his limbs feel heavy, and he doesn’t _want_ to leave. He curls into himself, feeling oddly strange and empty. Just a few more seconds. Just a few more seconds, and then he’ll leave. Just a few more seconds, and he’ll finish his mission. He’ll finish his mission, finish it, without—

His eyes widen, a glint of something sparkling catching his eye, and he scrabbles forward. His fingers clutch onto something smooth and hard, before he feels the floor cracking beneath his feet, and he’s forced to leave.

He runs, runs as the floor creaks and shatters beneath his feet. His lungs burn, and he brings a sleeve up to his nose. But he’ll make it. He’ll make it to the end. Him, and the object in his hand. A parting gift. A final message. A promise.

He’ll finish his mission. If it’s the last thing he does.

—

Shinichi’s awake again, this time with more clarity, but he keeps his eyes closed. His dream is still washing over the edges of his mind, the memory lapping away at the shore as the sea slowly recedes.

The smell of smoke is never lost to his lungs. He has caught enough of it over the course of his life to memorize what the smell is like. The feeling of adrenaline is never far too long out of his system either, with the choice of profession that he’s chosen. The object in his dream, the object that he has stored somewhere in the temporary apartment he had just moved into, is also something he keeps a precious hold on.

He wonders if the person who left it behind for him, who gave it to him, is still here. It’s quiet. He doesn’t know if it’s still the same night, if a day has passed, or if several have passed. He wonders, so he peels open his eyes, and turns his head to his right.

They’re still there. Still sleeping, this time on their back.

Shinichi quirks his lip, and finally finds the strength he needs to turn onto his side. His body still aches, and his muscles are sluggish from disuse, but the peaceful rise and fall of the other’s chest is enough motivation to keep him moving.

Shinichi wasn’t obsessed, never has been (even though people would tell him otherwise), but the childish satisfaction he feels seeing the other person’s sleeping face, unguarded without any masks, is enough to make him feel a small sense of triumph. And warmth..

It settles low in his chest, and expands outwards, faster than he can regulate it. His hand twitches, and the thought of reaching out towards them crosses his mind, before he stops himself in a slight panic, panic that he tries to tamper down.

Shinichi turns onto his back again. He doesn’t know how long he can keep looking at that face. He takes a deep breath in and closes his eyes. He has so many questions, questions he wants answers to, now that they’re finally within grasp.

There’s a lot of things he could ask.

_‘How are you?’_

“Kuroba Kaito,” a soft voice says, and Shinichi startles out of his thoughts, his train of emotions grinding to a screeching halt. He holds his breath, until he realizes that he shouldn’t be doing that if he’s trying to feign sleep. He lets it out slowly.

_‘What have you been doing?’_

“My name.” The voice continues, so Shinichi must’ve failed at feigning. He mentally sighs. Typical. “Nice to finally meet you, detective.” They sound so cheeky.

_‘What are you doing now?’ ‘Are you happy?’_

Shinichi opens his eyes, slowly. But it doesn’t matter how discreet he’s trying to be, because he can already feel the heat of someone’s gaze prickling at his cheek. Even after so long, the weight of that gaze hasn’t lessened its effect on him. His pulse hums underneath his skin, and he swallows.

_‘Did you find what you were looking for?’_

He has a lot of things he could say in response, and his mind cycles through each option, drawing out the seconds. An introduction. A jab at his name, a clever play on words. Something mundane. But he doesn’t say any of that. He doesn’t think any of them would fit. Not yet.

_‘Where were you?’_

Shinichi turns his head, coming face to face with the final remnant of his past. The final puzzle piece he had lost before he could complete the puzzle of Edogawa Conan, forcing himself to hand over an incomplete picture to Kudou Shinichi, a small but gaping hole disrupting the dark yet vibrant scene. A puzzle piece lost, a puzzle piece found, and everything finally slots into place.

_‘Did your absence affect you as much as it did me?’_

But he wonders how long he can keep this piece in his hand. The boy (Kaito, Shinichi’s mind supplies, forgoing his surname altogether, because he just wants _him_ , without anything else attached) beside him has turned on his side, facing Shinichi with his head pillowed on his arm, a small enigmatic smile dusted across his lips. With the dim lighting of the room, coupled with the single streak of moonlight gleaming through the window behind him, Kaito’s eyes shine an unnatural, mischievous glow.

There’s a lot of things he could ask.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” Shinichi croaks, holding the other’s gaze like a challenge.

Kaito’s smile only sharpens. “Good morning to you too.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

Kaito chuckles, before shooting him an exaggerated pout. “Is that really the way you greet an old friend? I waited all day for you to wake up, you know.”

“How long have I been out?” Shinichi asks, ignoring every other part of what Kaito had said.

“A couple of days.”

Shinichi hums.

“Maybe a week.”

Shinichi jerks up, only to hiss at the pain shooting up his abdomen. He’s forced to lie back down, clutching at his side. He turns back towards Kaito, who was now watching him with an amused expression. “A week?”

Kaito shrugs, his smile widening. “I said maybe.”

Shinichi’s face falls. “Fine. I’ll find out when the nurses come in later anyways.”

“Five days.” Kaito says, holding up a hand.

A small smirk tugs involuntarily at his lips. “Now was that so hard?” Shinichi quips.

“I don’t know,” Kaito says airily, waving his hand around in the air, “it took a lot of effort. You should thank me.”

Shinichi snorts. “As if.”

“So cruel,” Kaito whines, and Shinichi turns his head back towards the ceiling.

He, really doesn’t want to keep looking at that face. “Do you know when you’re going to be discharged?”

“Eager to get rid of me?”

“Absolutely.”

A pillow lands roughly on his face, and he’s spluttering as he scrambles to push it off. He sits up, ignoring all the protesting that his muscles are making, and blinks owlishly down at the pillow in his arms. He then glares at Kaito.

Kaito only shakes his head with wide eyes, as if he was just as surprised. “That wasn’t me,” he says as _he sleeps on the bare mattress with no pillow under his head_.

Shinichi flings the pillow back at him, with all the vindictiveness his aching muscles can offer. Kaito catches it, obviously, and Shinichi lies back down with a low grumble.

He turns away from Kaito and pulls the blanket over his head.

“No more talking?”

“ _Goodnight_ ,” he grinds out in response.

But neither of them sleep until dawn, because Shinichi can feel Kaito’s eyes on him the entire night, while his own thoughts dance around the man lying a meter away from him.

* * *

It’s not…tense, but he does feel a little out of place as he sits in his bed. The doctors had told him that he had been poisoned with some sort of new drug, a drug that Sato had visited to tell him that it was being illegally developed, and still in its early development phases. The group they had apprehended had been looking for test subjects, hence the hostages, but he was the only one to actually have it swimming in his system.

There didn’t seem to be any lasting damage, since the drug was still relatively new, but it had knocked him out for five days straight, so the doctors were keen on monitoring his condition until next week. He could be discharged then, for his own benefit.

Sato had taken one look at him and patted him on the back. She had told him to rest before leaving, saying she would take care of his portion of work until he could go back to the station. So now here he was, confined to bed rest for the next seven days.

It was a cozy room at least, with four beds, two on the right side of the room and two on the left, with a giant window on the far wall. Fairly decent sized, not too cramped. The occupants on the left side of the room were a mother and son, who had been caught in a traffic accident the day before Shinichi woke up.

And on the right side was him, and...Kaito.

Kaito hadn’t been present when he had woken up this morning, presumably taken somewhere else by his nurse. He didn’t know if it was relief or disappointment he felt at that, but it was probably for the best. He doesn’t know if they can...settle in with each other that easily. It’s been two years.

So during the time he had waited for Kaito to inevitably come back, he had taken to playing cards with the little boy on his bed. He had just thrown down an ace of hearts into the growing pile between them when the door to their room slides open, and they both turn their heads to face the newcomer.

The boy blinks, and Shinichi freezes. Kaito blinks back at them, his eyes shifting back and forth between the two of them, before he grins.

“Acquainted already?”

The boy grins. “Yup! He’s good at cards.”

Actually, Shinichi doesn’t even know what game they had been playing. The boy had only waltzed over to his bed and climbed on, before laying a deck of cards in Shinichi’s lap and staring up at him in question. Shinichi had stared back for a few seconds, before he was taking the box and pulling out the cards.

And from there he had just been throwing cards down at random. But hey, apparently he was winning, so he’ll take it.

Kaito grins, and places his hands on his hips as he puffs his chest out. “Well I would say I’m still the best.”

The boy’s grin widens. “Of course! Want to play?”

“Definitely.”

Kaito walks over to Shinichi’s bed and sits directly beside him, practically pushing Shinichi off until one leg is braced on the floor to keep himself upright, in order to make room. Shinichi deadpans at him, and Kaito grins mischievously back, leaning forward. He’s dangerously close, but Shinichi is never really one to back down.

It can’t be that easy to fall back into rhythm with him.

“What do you say, detective?” Kaito asks with a teasing lilt to his voice. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off Shinichi’s. “Ready to lose?”

It can’t be.

Shinichi stares into those shining eyes for a few more seconds, swirling with a challenge that Shinichi could never ignore.

He smirks, and the color in Kaito’s eyes deepen. “You’re on.”

It’s that easy.

—

“You totally lost.”

“I did not,” Shinichi scoffs. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“You’re only calling me that because you can’t admit that you lost.”

“And you—”

“I won,” a voice cuts through the darkness, and both of them lift their heads to stare at the child sitting up across the room. “I won,” he repeats timidly, “so please, sleep.”

Shinichi blinks at him, before nodding and murmuring a soft apology. He can hear Kaito doing the same beside him, and drops his head back onto the pillow. Shinichi glances a look at the clock above their door and winces. It was pretty late. Had they really been bantering for that long?

He lets out a long breath and closes his eyes. Well, no use thinking it over now.

And then a voice cuts through the darkness.

“But you should still admit that you lost.”

Shinichi pries his eyes open. “Can you _shut_ —”

And so begins Shinichi’s week-long ~~torture~~ trial of being Kaito’s roommate.

* * *

“What are you doing.”

Kaito turns his head back towards Shinichi, half leaning out the giant window in their room. “Dropping bombs.”

Shinichi raises an eyebrow at him and gets out of his bed, making his way over to where Kaito was standing. “You can’t be serious.”

And then he leans out the window, only to find the garden below them splashed with a rainbow of colors. He looks at the tied off medical glove in Kaito’s hand, filled with something that looks a dark red. Probably something that he concocted from what he could find in the hospital, whether it was lying around or directly stolen from the faculty’s offices.

“Oh my god you’re serious.”

“I’m bored,” Kaito whines, draping himself over the windowsill. He eyes a passing patient walking through the flower patch below them and adopts a wicked smile. He straightens himself up and hurls the glove out the window, before ducking with a snicker.

Shinichi isn’t about to implicate himself, so he hides behind the wall, and watches as the bomb explodes in a cloud of red smoke. When it clears, the patient is panicked and looking around frantically, perfectly clean. The patch of grass surrounding him though, had taken to a deep shade of red.

They don’t seem to have caught onto the direction from where the bomb came from, so Kaito stands back up and shoots Shinichi a pleased grin. “The dye will wash out easily with the sprinklers.” He winks at Shinichi and gives him an ‘ok’ sign. “Perfectly safe.”

Shinichi raises an eyebrow, and turns around to watch the patient run back towards the hospital entrance in a wild flurry, clearly disoriented.

He turns back towards Kaito with an unimpressed look. “You’re insufferable.” And then he leans out the window. “Do it again.”

Kaito shoots him a smirk, and scours around the garden for his next victim. They end up being quite far, so Kaito actually has to exert some force into his throw, but it still lands within their general vicinity. Laughter spills out of them as they watch as another target runs off in panicked confusion.

Kaito is in the middle of finding his fourth target when they hear a yell from below them, and they both look down to find a nurse glaring up at them.

“What are you doing!”

“Ah.” They both say at the same time, and they watch as the nurse rushes towards the entrance. No doubt to get to them.

“You think we’ll survive?” Shinichi asks, eyeing the doors that the nurse had disappeared through.

“ _We?_ ”

Shinichi raises an eyebrow. “Yeah why—,” and turns back towards Kaito to find him halfway out the window. Shinichi’s eyes nearly bulge out of his sockets.

“Tell her I’m sorry!” Kaito yells as he leaps out the window, and Shinichi doesn’t even have the time to watch him land, because the door to his room is suddenly sliding open with a loud bang, and he’s faced with the angriest nurse he’s ever seen.

“What were you doing!” The nurse yells, and Shinichi turns away to yell out the window.

“You bas—!”

“Sir!”

—

“So I’ve been thinking.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Maybe I should apologize?”

“Oh _should you_?” Shinichi bites out.

“Well if you’re going to be rude about it then I won’t,” Kaito says, sounding put out.

“You weren’t going to apologize regardless!”

Kaito is silent for the next few moments, and Shinichi seethes. “You got me there.”

* * *

Shinichi peeks through an opening between his fingers, side-eying the scene beside him in trepidation. The male nurse, the third one in rotation, in fact, was trying his hardest not to deck Kaito in the face. And honestly, Shinichi was close too.

He watches as the nurse snaps a plastic syringe in half, and then promptly closes the gap between his fingers. He can’t watch. The angry veins bulging on the nurse’s neck were bound to burst soon, and Shinichi didn’t want to be cursed with that horrifying sight. The thought of it was bad enough.

He hears the nurse murmur a biting apology, clearly reigning in his anger, before excusing himself. Heavy footsteps, heavier than usual for someone of the average build, stomped across the room. It’s not until Shinichi hears the sliding door being thrown open vigorously does he lift his hand.

He shoots Kaito a flat look. “Stop.”

Kaito blinks at him, playing coy, even though Shinichi could _see_ the mischief swirling in his eyes. “Stop what?”

“That’s the third nurse that’s been assigned to you.”

Kaito raises an eyebrow at him, like it’s something that happens regularly. “And?”

Shinichi is so close to strangling him. The antics that Kaito played with the first nurse, a woman in her late thirties, were ones he could put up with, because they were practically harmless. A few uniform color changes here and there, some shuffling of hairpins, little things that she wouldn’t notice until the end of the day. Except that it drove her to paranoia, apparent only when she tended to Kaito, so she requested a change.

The second nurse, a young university student there for an internship, was something he could put up with a little less. Kaito had taken one look at her, another look at the male nurse (also an intern, the girl’s partner, and Kaito’s current nurse) that stood behind her, as they introduced themselves, and immediately started flirting with her.

(“I’m doing this for their own good Shinichi,” Kaito had said.

“You’re just going to use my first name just like tha—”

“They’re never going to confess otherwise.”

“That is literally not the poi—”

“Jealousy is always a good motivator.”

“That is the worst plan I’ve ever hea—”

“Can’t believe I’m doing this for free.”

And then Shinichi promptly threw his only pillow at his face, hard enough that Kaito fell off his bed after being hit.)

He still hasn’t gotten his pillow back yet.

(“You’re not getting this back,” Kaito said from the floor.

“Oh no,” Shinichi gasped, as dramatically as he could make it. “How will I survive?”)

Which led him to his third nurse, the one that Kaito had tried to get a rise out of through jealousy, and one he felt absolute pity for.

“It’s not going to work,” Shinichi says.

Kaito smiles, all smug and self-assured. “Just watch.”

He jerks his head in the direction of the door, and Shinichi turns his head to see Kaito’s second nurse rubbing Kaito’s third nurse’s back just outside the doorway, before she stands up on her tip-toes and plants a kiss on his cheek.

Shinichi gapes, not quite believing his eyes, and then thinks the world is playing pranks on him.

“I’m such a genius.” He hears Kaito say from behind him, and he whips around to roll his eyes at him ( _‘You did_ not _just turn around only to roll your eyes at m—’_ ), before turning his head away to watch the nurse walk back inside the room.

The nurse stops in between their beds, and they both look expectantly at him. Shinichi doesn’t even know what he’s expecting. He leans back to peek at Kaito around the nurse’s body, finding him staring up at the nurse with wide and innocent eyes. Shinichi’s face sours in distaste.

The nurse coughs, and bows lightly. “I’m really sorry for my previous behavior, I was completely in the wrong.”

Kaito tilts his head. “But you didn’t do anything.”

The nurse’s back is turned towards Shinichi, so he can’t see what type of expression he’s making. But his irritation from earlier has clearly dissipated, replaced with a tick of nervousness, if the slight hunch in his shoulders were something to tell by.

“Um, well, you see,” the nurse begins nervously, before squaring his shoulders and bowing again, this time lower. “I’m really sorry if this offends you, but Ishikawa-san, your previous nurse, is already dating someone, so we would greatly appreciate it if you held back on your advances. Thank you.”

Shinichi blinks at the nurse, who was still bent at nearly a 90 degree angle, and he chances a look up at Kaito. Kaito blinks at him. Shinichi shrugs. And then Kaito smirks at him. Shinichi’s skin prickles. Why does he sense danger.

“Actually,” Kaito starts, waiting as the nurse quickly straightens, and then looks up at him with the blankest look. “I’m already taken.”

 _What_.

“What?” The nurse asks, clearly confused, “then why—”

Kaito chuckles good naturedly. “A misunderstanding perhaps?”

“Wha—”

“Okay!” Shinichi half-shouts, slotting himself between Kaito and the nurse with a placating smile. Kaito has terrorized this man enough. “I’m—”

And then he feels a pair of arms snaking around his waist, a head nuzzling itself into the side of his ribs as he freezes.

“By this guy!”

The nurse’s eyes widen, and Shinichi immediately feels like dying.

“He’s joking,” he quickly says. He pushes Kaito’s head away from his ribs, or tries to. As soon as he has his hands in Kaito’s hair, Kaito squeezes his waist harder, making Shinichi wheeze and double over.

“I’m really not.”

“I’ve never met this person in my life,” Shinichi wheezes, and keeps trying to push him away. But Kaito only squeezes harder, and Shinichi is slowly losing air to his lungs.

“You’re so cruel,” Kaito whines, nonchalantly as Shinichi keeps on sinking. He can’t even do anything about it, Kaito has much better leverage over him in this position. Not to mention he’s still _recovering from injuries_.

The nurse looks between the both of them, confused and horrified. Kaito might have to get a fourth nurse instated.

“Help me,” he rasps, and Kaito finally lets him drop onto the floor with a soft thud. He’s immediately hacking his lungs out in order to get proper air flow back. He doesn’t know how long he coughs for, he just knows that by the time he’s inhaling big gulps of air, the nurse has disappeared and Kaito is looming over him from the bed.

Kaito smiles at him, wide and complacent. “Position is still open by the way.”

He has half a mind to stand up and throttle him. He does the first part at least, dusting his clothes off as soon as he’s straightened up. He glares at Kaito from the corner of his eye. “What position.”

Kaito smiles. “My partner!” And then he purses his lips and starts counting on his fingers as he lists out other alternatives. “Or my significant other. Or my companion, Or—”

Oh HELL no.

He grabs Kaito’s collar and tugs him forward, until he’s blinking into Shinichi’s flaring eyes. “You do NOT get to assault me and then suggest that I—,” and then he keeps yelling. He doesn’t know how long for, and he lost track of what he was yelling halfway through, but it felt nice so he just goes, and then keeps going.

Kaito just watches him with that same complacent smile, and he occasionally shrugs and pouts, as if he’s cute enough for that to work as an apology. News flash, Shinichi could care less.

Probably.

Maybe?

Kaito gives him puppy dog eyes when Shinichi makes another biting remark, and Shinichi feels his words falter. Okay, wait, time out, that doesn’t count. Kaito’s eyes don’t count. Everything else, he could care less.

Probably.

Maybe?

Shinichi stops yelling, feeling his chest heave as he glares resolutely down at Kaito. Kaito doesn’t say anything back, he just flicks his eyes somewhere over Shinichi’s shoulder before returning to Shinichi’s gaze. His smile melts into something more sheepish.

Shinichi narrows his eyes.

“Mommy why are they yelling at each other?” A small voice asks, and Shinichi freezes, turning around to see the mother they were sharing the room with cover the child’s eyes.

“Just a lover’s quarrel dear,” the mom chuckles uneasily as she leads the child away. “Don’t mind it.” She gives Shinichi and Kaito a gentle smile, before she moves to slide the door close. “I’ll just give the two of you privacy,” she whispers before the door shuts.

Shinichi is mortified. He whips his head around to glare at Kaito, but Kaito only grins up at him. Shinichi actually throttles him. “Look what you’ve done!”

And they spend the rest of the hour with Shinichi yelling at him.

—

“You’re evil.”

“No, I'm a detective.”

“I’m literally a victim.”

“Hah!” Shinichi barks out a sharp cut of laughter, before settling back into his bed, back turned towards Kaito.

“So you’re just gonna let me lie here? With no neck support?”

“Shame.” Shinichi snuggles further into his pillow (which he had snagged back), and clutches Kaito’s pillow closer to his chest. He’s going to have soft dreams tonight. “You deserve it.”

“Shinichi.”

Shinichi doesn’t answer.

“ _Shinichi_.”

—

Kaito’s new nurse doesn’t take any of Kaito’s shenanigans. He watches as she verbally manhandles him into doing everything he needs to do in order to speed up his recovery, all within the time frame of 2 hours. Kaito’s not suffering per se, but he’s definitely not the happiest, not for someone who loves to stand back and watch the chaos he’s caused.

He smiles smugly in satisfaction. Shinichi is having a good day.

* * *

“I’m sorry.”

Shinichi raises an inquisitive eyebrow, and turns his head to look at Kaito, who was lying in his bed with one arm supporting his head, and the other lying on his stomach. He was staring up at the ceiling, with the moonlight streaming in through the window illuminating his face. “What for?”

Kaito’s face remains impassive. “Not for a lot of things.”

Shinichi scrunches his face up in indignation. “Then what’s the point of apologizing?”

Kaito remains silent for a few moments. And Shinichi keeps his eyes on him, waiting. And then Kaito turns his head away, towards the window. “For taking so long.”

Shinichi frowns, and he turns his gaze back towards the ceiling.

His mind flashes back to the final gift KID had left him, right after he had disappeared in that fire. _Disappeared_ , not died, and the only reason he knew was because KID had left that object for him to find. His monocle. A piece of well-made glass. One layer of the double layered glass that the two of them looked at each other through.

Shinichi lets out a sigh. “ _Idiot,_ ” he drawls, straight-faced and dispassionate, as if it was just a fact. He hears a shuffle of fabric, and he can see Kaito turning to face him from his periphery, but he keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling, tracing constellations across the gray dots.

Kaito doesn’t say anything. So Shinichi continues.

“It doesn’t matter how long you took,” Shinichi says, voice surprisingly gentle. “Or how long you will still take. I got your message the moment you left, so I know. And that’s good enough.”

He doesn’t turn his head, and Kaito doesn’t make any move to come closer, so they both just stay there lying in the dark, a chasm of time between the two of them.

“If I had come back earlier, would you have....?” Kaito trails off in question, and Shinichi’s mouth thins into a line. He knows what Kaito was asking, and he knows what his answer is. It’s probably an answer that Kaito knows too, just one that he doesn’t want to hear. There were a lot of things that happened in the past two years, things he wished he could have changed, but the thought of leftover threats extending over to everyone he knew sat like poison in his stomach.

“No,” he answers simply.

“Oh.”

“But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

He hears a huff of laughter beside him, and he quirks his lip. “I guess not.”

—

It’s quiet. “I’m glad you’re back.”

* * *

Shinichi was outraged. “You’re going to look at me and tell me that I’m _wrong_?”

“That’s because you _are_ —”

Shinichi slams his hand on his knee. “That’s bullshi—!”

Kaito immediately flies forward, clamping both of his hands over Shinichi’s mouth. “Shhh,” he hisses, “there are kids present.”

Shinichi blinks at him, before his face falls, unimpressed. He muffles out a response, but it’s unintelligible underneath Kaito’s hands. Kaito ignores him and turns to look at the little boy sitting by Shinichi’s side.

Kaito smiles and laughs a little nervously. “Don’t mind him, he didn’t mean what he said.”

Shinichi totally meant what he said. Or what he was about to say, before he was so rudely _interrupted_.

The kid blinks up at Kaito with wide eyes, before nodding hesitantly. Kaito nods back at him in response, and takes his hands off Shinichi as he steps back. He shoots Shinichi a pointed look, and Shinichi continues staring back at him with an unimpressed look still on his face.

Kaito has almost stepped back to his bed when Shinichi feels a tug on his sleeve. He turns his head to look at the little boy beside him, an eyebrow raised in question. The boy waves his hand, signaling for Shinichi to come closer, so Shinichi leans his head down.

The boy cups his hand around his mouth and whispers, particularly loudly into Shinichi’s ear, “—hit.”

Shinichi blinks once, and then blinks again, before the word registers in his mind and he’s shooting Kaito the most smug and most self-satisfied smirk he could muster.. Kaito looks down at them both mortified.

And then Kaito is placing his hands on hips and lecturing them. Shinichi’s face falls again, not even registering all the complaints that Kaito was spouting in his face. Is this what Kaito felt the other day? Everything just comes in one ear and then out the other.

But Kaito just goes, and he just keeps on going. And Shinichi is having a staring contest. When the seconds he’s counting in his head reach 27, Kaito blinks. Shinichi immediately gives himself a mental pat on the back.

He’s about to start another one when there’s a sudden silence, and Shinichi has to startle himself back into the present to remind himself that Kaito is probably done yelling at him. Kaito is glaring expectantly at him, with his arms having crossed sometime during his lecture, so Shinichi only nods and turns back to the kid beside him.

Shinichi smirks and gives the kid a thumbs up, winking for good measure. “You did great.”

The kid beams.

A pillow comes flying at his face and he’s promptly knocked out.

—

Shinichi stares at Kaito’s back. He was hunched into himself, facing away from Shinichi, and clearly sulking. Shinichi sighs. “I’m not wron—”

“I’m not talking to you.”

“Okay but I’m not wron—”

“Don’t talk to me.”

Shinichi purses his lips, before shifting his arm from beneath his head. “Can I at least have my pillow ba—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

Shinichi sighs.

* * *

“I don’t like wearing your hair.”

Shinichi is in the middle of changing his shirt when Kaito says this, and he promptly turns around to stare incredulously at him. “What?”

“Yeah, do you know how long it takes to get that little tuft of hair the sticks up right? At least, .0001 milliseconds longer than any other hairstyle I’ve ever had to wear.”

Shinichi rolls his eyes. “If it’s such an inconvenience for you then don’t do it anymore.”

“Oh no,” Kaito shakes his head. “I like doing it.”

Shinichi’s mouth falls open in disbelief. “You _just_ said you didn’t like wearing it.”

Kaito crosses his arms and furrows his eyebrows. “I know what I said.”

Shinichi takes his pillow and smacks it into Kaito’s face right as his nurse walks in. Kaito ends up falling off the bed again, and Shinichi is about to follow him with the vindictiveness of a thousand suns contained in a single pillow and a pair of arms when his nurse is pulling him back frantically.

“Sir!” She cries, and Shinichi waves his arms in anger as she pulls him back towards his own bed.

“I’m gonna get him!” He yells petulantly. “I’m gonna do it!”

* * *

It is once again, the middle of the night.

“You don’t know this but elevator music is playing in my head 26 hours a day.”

And Kaito is, once again, refusing to _stop talking_.

He’s doing this on purpose. Shinichi knows he’s doing this on purpose. He knows that he’s being baited. And he’s not going to fall for it. He’s not—”That’s not even proper math.”

“I can do math,” Kaito immediately responds. “I’m a genius. I just thought you wouldn’t appreciate it.”

Shinichi is so offended he can’t even speak for a solid minute. But he doesn’t need to, because a quiet voice sounds from across the room, “Um, mister, could you-”

“Say no more,” Shinichi says as he rolls out of bed and slams his pillow into Kaito’s face. He’s met with a cut off shriek and loud grunt. If the fourth occupant in their shared room wasn’t awake yet, she would be now.

—

He ends up taking Kaito’s pillow again.

“Can I have it bac—”

“No,” Shinichi says haughtily. He resolutely keeps his eyes shut. It’s too late for this. He just wants to sleep. “Naughty people get their pillow rights revoked.”

There’s a beat of silence. And then. “Kinky.”

Shinichi’s eyes fly open.

* * *

Shinichi slides the door to his room open with the widest grin on his face. Only the little boy is in the room, and he greets Shinichi with a small wave. The mother wasn’t present, so she must’ve gone to get food for the both of them. Shinichi nods at him and slides the door closed behind him.

“Did something good happen mister?” The little boy asks curiously.

Shinichi nods his head and bounds his way to his bed. “Absolutely.”

The boy smiles. “What happened?”

Shinichi is about to reply when the door flies open, and a haggard looking Kaito stands at the entrance, his face soured. Shinichi’s eyes crinkle around the edges.

He points a thumb at him. “This guy fell down the stairs.”

“You didn’t even attempt to save me!” Kaito yells.

“I made an attempt,” Shinichi says, frowning.

“Turning around and going, ‘ah’, is _not an attempt_.”

“I stopped didn’t I?”

“For a second! And then you just walked away!”

“You were going to be fin—”

“I could’ve died!”

“It was five steps at _most_.”

“I’m taking your pillow tonight.”

Shinichi gapes at him, before leveling him with a glare. “No you’re not.”

And then Kaito took his pillow that night. The audacity. Unbelievable.

* * *

“I have an idea.”

Shinichi immediately shoots him down, because it’s the middle of the night and they’re getting discharged tomorrow. “No you don’t.”

“It’s a great idea.”

“I can guarantee you that it’s not.”

“How would you know? You don’t even know what the idea is.”

“I have been your roommate for a whole week. It’ll be a terrible idea.”

There’s a brief bout of silence. “You liked that color bomb one.”

“No I didn’t.” Lies. He totally did.

Kaito lets out a small ‘hmph’, and it sounds like he’s pouting. “It costs 0 yen to be nice to me.”

Shinichi doesn’t even hesitate. “That’s money I don’t have.”

“ _Mean_.”

“If you say one more thing and not go to sleep, I’m going to report you to the nurses. And your friend. For good measure.”

There’s a beat of silence that follows, and Shinichi leans his head back against the wall.

Then there’s frantic shuffling beside him as hair brushes against his hand, and an offended voice follows. “ _You’re_ the one in _my_ bed.”

Shinichi looks down, watching as Kaito’s face scrunches up in indignation, his body wired up like a cat ready to pounce. Shinichi feels the beginning hints of a smirk ghost across his features, and he brings a finger up to his lips, quietly making a shushing noise. “People are still sleeping across the room,” he whispers.

But Kaito wasn’t wrong. Shinichi _was_ currently occupying Kaito’s bed, seated near his head with one leg bent and propped up beside Kaito’s body, and the other hanging off the side. The hospital beds were pathetically small, but they could manage this much. Kaito wasn’t complaining at least, even if the top half of his body was forced to lie near the bed’s other edge.

Kaito opens his mouth to retaliate, but Shinichi throws a hand over Kaito’s eyes, stifling any sound that would’ve come out. He watches as Kaito tenses up even further for the briefest second, before his muscles slowly unwind, loosening until he’s lying limp by Shinichi’s side. Shinichi’s lips quirk up unbidden then, despairingly fond.

“You’re really unfair,” Kaito murmurs, and Shinichi chuckles.

“ _Goodnight_ ,” Shinichi says, tone final.

* * *

They’re both discharged on the same day. The paperwork took a mere few minutes, and then they were both exiting the hospital doors around nighttime. The blanket of night that was speckled with a few shining stars hovers over them as Shinichi steps outside into the cool air.

He stretches, and slides a hand down his face. He’s probably going to have so much work piled up on his desk at the station tomorrow. Sato would probably have mercy on him and give his work to him in increments, but the amount would increase over time.

He sighs, and then turns to look at the man beside him. Kaito wasn’t looking at him, and had his hands in his pocket as he stared up at the night sky, rocking back and forth slightly on the balls of his heels.

“Which way are you going?” He doesn’t particularly want to part from Kaito just yet, but he’s not sure...where they stand at the moment. They had treated each other as if no time had passed between the two of them while they were sharing a room, but that was because they were in forced proximity. Now that they’re out in the open, where either of them was free to go anywhere, Shinichi...doesn’t really know.

Kaito turns to smile at him, this smile the same enigmatic one that he always wore as KID, the same one he had greeted Shinichi with when he had first woken up. It’s different from the ones he had given Shinichi from within the confines of the hospital, and the juxtaposition of what he sees, and what he remembers, makes his heart throb unexpectedly.

This really was the end huh.

Kaito points left, and Shinichi nods. And then he pauses. He was going that way too. “Really?”

“Yup,” Kaito chirps.

“Alright,” Shinichi says, and tries to tamper down the small spark of relief lighting in his stomach. They still have a little time left together. He doesn’t know how long that may be, but at least it’s longer than this. “Me too.”

“Great! Let’s go then.”

They turn and walk down the street in silence, illuminated only by the half moon in the sky and the street lamps. It’s mostly empty, but a few cars drive past from time to time. Shinichi keeps his gaze forward, while Kaito trails a few steps after him.

It’s...quiet. Different from the dynamic they held while they were sharing a room. And Shinichi doesn’t know what to make of it. The air is heavy, that much he can tell, but it’s not him that’s causing it. At least, he doesn’t think he is. The only thing he had been thinking about wa—

“I didn’t know where you left to.” And it’s then that he realizes that no longer hears footsteps trailing after him.

Shinichi stops, and turns around to raise an eyebrow at Kaito. Kaito’s face was set in a grim frown, serious in a way that he hadn’t seen since nearly two weeks ago, when they had fallen to that group of drug traffickers. “What do you mean?”

“I thought,” Kaito starts, his eyes boring into Shinichi’s, “I would find you in university, after having snooped around beforehand. But you weren’t there, and then you weren’t anywhere in Tokyo either, and I didn’t hear anything about you for nearly two years. You were essentially gone.”

Shinichi furrows his eyebrows, before shifting his eyes to the side. Ah, that. His two year absence. “I couldn’t come back right away, even though I wanted to.. Things hadn’t settled down yet, and I was still preoccupied with keeping my cover, working overseas, chasing down the remaining elusive factions and independent relations. And by the time work started dwindling, I just didn’t see a point in just coming back, everyone had already moved on.”

Shinichi lifts his eyes back up, meeting Kaito’s confusion with his own disheartened resolve.

“By the time I would’ve come back, I would’ve already missed everything.” Shinichi’s shoulders slump, the first year and half of struggles seemingly finally having caught up to him. He remembers, those late nights in a foreign country reading through interrogation transcripts, with only a couple of officers on rotation and a desk lamp keeping him company. Of lying low in different prefectures, watching his friends move on without him from a distance, and not being able to reach them, as either Conan or Shinichi. “The world doesn’t wait for anyone.”

“So rather than catching up,” Kaito trails off, and Shinichi nods.

“I took a different direction,” Shinichi says, surprisingly light as he cracks a smile. He wasn’t running away, no matter how it looked. Running away wasn’t something he _did_ , but there just wasn’t any track left for him to catch up on. The end of the road for his teenage years, leaving a blank expanse for his adulthood ahead, so he trekked his own path through the cracked dirt. “Coming back to Tokyo wasn’t even my decision, they transferred me here after my six-month internship ended in Kyoto.”

Kaito frowns. “Did you want to come back?”

Shinichi shrugs, and he finds it to be extremely easy to laugh. “I don’t really know. But it does keep my ‘Detective of the East’ namesake, doesn’t it?”

Kaito takes a halting step forward, and Shinichi’s smile saddens. He watches as Kaito bites his lip, his eyebrows furrowing the slightest bit in uncertainty, before he shakes his head and stalks the rest of the way forward, until he’s standing directly in front of Shinichi, his vivid eyes sharpened in determination. What for, Shinichi doesn’t know. He can’t read _what for. Why_.

“But I guess,” Shinichi continues, not knowing what to do under the scrutiny of those eyes. Always those eyes. “I couldn’t just leave without attending to everything I’d left behind. So here I am, of my own free will.”

Kaito jerks forward, startling Shinichi into stumbling a step back. “For how long?”

Shinichi furrows his eyebrows, and finds that even if he opens his mouth to answer, he can’t make one come out. He closes his mouth, and presses his lips together in a thin line, contemplating.

Kaito tries again, his tone demanding. “For how long.”

And Shinichi wonders when this role reversal had happened. Wasn’t he usually the one demanding answers from someone? He’s gotten so used to it, that he doesn’t know what to do now that it’s being done to him, especially outside of a one-way mirrored interrogation room.

Shinichi swallows, and all he does, all he _can do_ , is focus on those eyes. There’s desperation swimming in them, beneath all the hardened determination to get an answer out of Shinichi. It’s the same desperation he had seen that day in the underground room, when his vision was blurring from the drug swimming in his system, and all he could discern was a trembling hand reaching out towards him, encompassed by _those eyes_.

When Shinichi doesn’t answer, Kaito reaches out and snatches his wrist. Shinichi’s eyes nearly bug out of his head, stumbling another step back as he stares down at where they meet. Kaito’s palm burns, skin smooth as it slides against Shinichi’s wrist.

Shinichi looks back up at him. “Wha-”

But he’s stunned into silence when Kaito lowers himself down onto one knee, his eyes never leaving Shinichi’s gaze.

“Stay.” Kaito’s voice is quiet, velvety as it meets Shinichi’s ears, but his tone is adamant. Not quite a command, but more than a plea.

And Shinichi, doesn’t know what to say to that. Staying, would’ve been nice, in the past. He had so many puzzle pieces in his hand, once upon a time, keeping him whole and in one place. But that was all there was to it, a puzzle completed, a picture painted, a moment framed, hung up on an empty wall in the hall, one he would walk past once it no longer needed him to admire it.

What would he stay for now, he wonders.

“For me,” Kaito answers, a smile pulling at his lips as he slides his grip down to Shinichi’s fingers, bringing his knuckles up to his lips. Shinichi’s skin flares. Kaito’s hand slides back up to Shinichi’s wrist, tugging him forward the slightest bit. Closer. Kaito’s smile doesn’t waver. “Chase me again.”

Shinichi blinks at him.

“Chase me again,” Kaito repeats, flipping his hand over so that his palm lightly brushes the swell of Kaito’s cheek.

Shinichi’s heart stutters, his stomach doing weird little flips until he feels the organ drop away altogether. His fingers twitch involuntarily, and his skin burns where the tips of his fingers skim against Kaito’s jawline. His other hand is cold by his side, tense like a pulled rubber band, desperate to snap. He forces himself to relax.

What kind of expression is he making, he wonders. He doesn’t know, but he can’t feel any of his facial muscles shifting at all either

Kaito’s smile softens, and he turns his head the slightest bit to press a chaste kiss against Shinichi’s wrist, right above his pulse point. He meets Shinichi’s eyes again. “Catch me again.” And there’s a lot that Shinichi could read from that, insistence, challenge, hope.

The rest is filled with something Shinichi can’t name, can’t quite say directly out loud just yet, because the sheer amount of whatever it is that swells within his chest is overwhelming. His usually clear mind is overclouded, just like it usually is whenever Kaito is involved, no matter which disguise or moniker he dons.

So he doesn’t think.

He simply twists his wrist out of Kaito’s hold, surprising the other for the briefest second before he clamps his hand over Kaito’s wrist and pulls him up. Kaito lets out a small squeak as he barrels forward, right into Shinichi’s chest, until they’re eye to eye, their noses a mere centimeters from touching.

Shinichi’s smirk is unrestrained, and he feels borderline manic when he leans the rest of the way in, tilting his head and sliding his eyes shut as he presses his lips against Kaito’s. Kaito stiffens, and it's not until Shinichi clenches his other fist into the hem of his shirt does he loosen up, melting into the kiss. He reaches up to clutch at Shinichi’s shoulder, and Shinichi feels himself slowly lowering Kaito’s wrist, even though his grip on him tightens the slightest bit.

Shinichi’s heart pounds loud in his ears, louder and louder as he presses harder against Kaito’s lips, savoring every touch and feel of the skin. It’s not...soft, as most of the dramas or anime or novels depict it to be, but it’s, it’s good. It’s tingly, sending sparks of excitement down his spine when Kaito kisses him back, pressing against him with the same amount of fierce intent. A challenge for a challenge.

And as much as he doesn’t want to, Shinichi is the first to pull away, his breath slightly heaving as he leans his forehead against Kaito’s. Kaito’s vibrant eyes meet his own, his eyes blown wide as his shallow breaths ghost over Shinichi’s lips. Even with Kaito’s pupils dilated, the supernatural glow of his irises is still bright enough to burn him, the sparks of excitement from earlier igniting into something of a primal need.

Shinichi’s smirk returns, wild enough to match the rate at which blood rushes past his ears. Such is the effect that Kaito has on him, he guesses, ever since the very beginning.

“Just try to stay out of my reach then,” Shinichi challenges, watching as Kaito’s eyes twitch. “I’ll catch with my own two hands, and I won’t let you go when I do.”

There’s something swirling in Kaito’s eyes as he says this, something Shinichi can’t pinpoint, but he doesn’t have a chance to analyze further when Kaito lets out a short breath.

Kaito closes his eyes, pulling away from Shinichi as he chuckles lightly, before he’s full-blown laughing and bending over slightly, clutching at his stomach. Shinichi doesn’t know what that means, but he thinks he has an idea, so he only watches in amusement, the warmth of Kaito’s other wrist still snug in his hand.

When Kaito straightens up again, slowly coming back to himself as his laughter dies down one chuckle at a time, he’s looking at Shinichi with something that Shinichi likens to adoration. Kaito’s eyes crinkle as his shoulders perk up, smile gently washing over his face. “Promise?”

Shinichi’s smile softens. “Promise.”

Kaito snatches his wrist out of Shinichi’s grip as he leaps forward, wrapping his arms around Shinichi’s neck. Kaito’s lips reconnect with his as he stumbles backwards, arms flailing around in an attempt to steady them until he finds his footing. When he does, he focuses the rest of his attention on the kiss, wrapping his arms loosely around Kaito’s waist.

This kiss is softer than last time, more languid in comparison, and they lean against each other to keep themselves upright. When Kaito pulls away, slow and reluctant, Shinichi is nearly disoriented and chasing after him, before he catches himself and is forced to pull back.

Kaito chuckles. “Eager,” he chides playfully. “But don’t worry, we have time. We, we have time,” his voice softens the slightest bit as he says this, before he swallows and adopts a more devilish edge, “all the time in the world, so we can get to the naughty stuff later.”

All the time in the world huh. That’s not something he believes in yet, not something Shinichi knows, not when so much of it has already been stripped from him. But, that’s something to think about for another day. Not today, not right now.

Shinichi fixes him with a flat look. The tender smile that Kaito shoots him doesn’t match his words at all. So Shinichi sighs and says as much. “Your face doesn’t match your words.”

“Oh?” Kaito grins. “Do you want my face to match my words or my words to match my face?”

Shinichi furrows his eyebrows, before he feels a hand skimming down his back, and the corners of his mouth pull down in exasperation. _Why ask if he’s already decided himself_. He snags Kaito’s hand by the wrist when it dips below his waist, holding it away as Kaito drops his smile and pouts.

“You really hold no reservations do you?” Shinichi asks, and Kaito beams.

“It’s not my fault that you’re so—”

Shinichi pushes him off before he can finish, drawing out barks of laughter from Kaito as Shinichi pats down his clothing. Shinichi shoots Kaito an irritated glance, but the other ignores it as he keeps laughing, the sound echoing around Shinichi’s ears. A sound he’s missed for so long. He rolls his eyes, and starts walking away, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he goes.

The movement brings a sharp halt to Kaito’s laughter. “Wait, where are you going?”

Shinichi stops, turning to face Kaito with a raised eyebrow. “Home.” _Temporary_. But maybe, now, a little bit more withstanding. “Are you coming?”

Kaito’s eyes widen, and he blinks owlishly at him, before a bashful smile spreads across his face. He bounds up to Shinichi’s side with an affectionate smile, and Shinichi stares at him with his eyebrow still raised, in silent question.

“Yup!” Kaito chirps, before a playful glint enters his eye. “I never took you for someone so bold thou—ah wait! Wait!”

Shinichi pauses in the middle of leaving him, turning back around to fix him with a flat stare that dares him to try _anything else_. Kaito chuckles nervously, before stepping up to Shinichi with a rueful smile.

“Fine,” Kaito acquiesces as he rolls his eyes, but there’s no offense in the gesture, just amused acceptance. But even with that, Shinichi doubts that it will be the last time Kaito says or does anything suggestive tonight, being who he is. And with that thought, Shinichi smiles.

“Alright,” Shinichi says as he steps forward, “let’s go.”

But he’s pulled back by his right elbow before he can take another step, and he stumbles back to blink at Kaito. Kaito doesn’t look at him. He only extracts Shinichi’s hand from his pants pocket, before intertwining it with his own, his fingers slotting perfectly into the spaces between Shinichi’s own fingers.

Kaito grins up at him. “Okay, now let’s go.”

Shinichi stares at him, lowers his gaze to their intertwined hands, and stares back up at him. Kaito’s expression doesn’t change, and Shinichi feels his lips quirking fondly. He tightens his hold and continues walking, at first dragging Kaito, before Kaito matches his pace and walks beside him, pressed up close to his side.

Kaito’s warm, and Shinichi lets himself melt just the slightest bit, molding their arms together. Shinichi breathes out softly through his nose and leans his head back, a smile pulling at his face as he stares up the sky, illuminated by Tokyo’s city lights. A strong sense of nostalgia. A faint sense of home.

It’s warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Some little bits that I thought would be fun to add :D  
> \- beginning is a direct opposite to the end (cold/warm) It's a very small detail but I liked it  
> -During that scene where Kaito was apologizing, Kaito was going to ask if Shinichi would’ve come back sooner, and Shinichi said no  
> -When they got discharged, Kaito wasn’t actually going the same way as Shinichi, he just wanted to follow him  
> -I wanted to make it seem like Kaito was the one who disappeared for two years, when in fact, it was Shinichi  
> -People CARE about Shinichi, they would NEVER let him slip away like he had, but this is from Shinichi’s POV so  
> Thank you for reading!! :DD Have a nice day!


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